Wednesday, April 10, 2013

A decade+ of training by the numbers

This post is more for me than you.

I've really been struggling lately with training. Although struggling isn't the right word. I've pretty much turned my back and walked away from running which turned out to not be that difficult. I'm really enjoying the time with my boys and I can see it will now be more difficult than ever to sacrifice this time with them in the future.

I've been at this for a long time. I started training hard in 1996. And by training hard I mean full bore. When I fell in love with Ironman I did nothing else. I was logging 100 mile run weeks and 7 hour rides in 1997. I was doing 27-29 mile training runs. I'm tired. Not physically but mentally and down to my soul. Thinking about going out and training with purpose just sounds awful and pointless to me. I could write pages on this, and I have actually but I didn't post them.
Today I got to thinking about totals and what I have done. Again this is much more for me to gain clarity. I can almost define my life by handing you my training logs. It's what my life was about and it defined me 100%. So I went back and counted up 11 years worth of data, kept it simple with just year totals in hours and running volume. I was a little surprised at how low the numbers were but this doesn't count the paces nor the actual intensity that I was working at or the month I took off completely every year. I remember 100 mile weeks where I averaged ~6:10-6:20 pace. 26 mile runs in workouts in 2:45. 120 mile bikes averaging 240-260 watts. I saw weeks that maxed out at 43 hours with consecutive weeks over 600 miles on the bike. Consecutive weeks between 130-150 miles of running. Weeks of 27-30k in the pool. The devil is in the details so the numbers are only a rough idea... but taking a step back now makes a little more sense. And remember that there were 8 hard years before these. And these are averages for 52 weeks and I always took ~4 weeks off at the end of the year, so you could say 48 weeks.

11 year Total:
6623 hours. 11:40 per week.
24919 miles run. 43.5 miles per week.

Interesting that last year (2012), my Leadman year, had the lowest training volume I've ever had. I can guarantee that 1997-2001 were some of my biggest so factor them out. This is partly why I feel that the Leadman record is quite soft, or it's soft based on what I could have gone. I barely trained for it really. I averaged probably ~3 hours a week on the bike I'm guessing.
And in 2010 and 2012 I averaged 41 and 34 miles a week running and both years I was 'focused' on a 100 mile run.

15 comments:

Man, now I'm going to feel like real douche when I don't break your soft record. I bet Troy Howard wouldn't say it's a soft record. Will be interesting to see what Travis Macy (or someone with ability who might be signed up that I don't even know about) does there.

Nah man, that wasn't the intention of the post. Last year was my lightest training year in the past 18 was the point. I got lazy or complacent or whatever. Even breaking the record and winning I'm still not able to be happy with what I did. Fucking sucks in my head. I think it will be a little tough to break the record. You'll have to get lucky and not have a single bad day. No mistakes. No mechanicals, no melt downs. But on paper it isn't that impressive, it's soft. My marathon time was solid, but I should have ridden 20:00 faster at Silver Rush and an hour faster at the 100 bike. Not so sure on the 100 run but I know you know... an ~18:00-18:30 is possible on that course. There's lost time there for the taking. And I think Troy would agree. He made mistakes like a double Hope crossing on the Monday after the 10k (just 4 days before the 100 run) which left him very fatigued. He probably could have gone ~2:00 faster too.

Travis is the danger man for sure. He's going to ride 8:00 going VERY easy. But he's completely unproven in the 100 run. I personally think a bad day for him will still be ~22:00 just from his adventure racing background. He knows how to hurt on his feet for days at a time. But like I said, luck is part of it. The guy who was in 3rd place, just 6' back going in to the 100 run finished 9 hours back. As you know a bad day in a 100 mile run can cost you hours.

I really do wish you would take the record though. I suspect that would motivate me to get off my ass.

Don't know what to say, Tim. Reading your post made me feel incredibly sad - for you. I remember telling you before your first Ironman that if it (your training & competing) ceased to be fun to stop. This has been your life - literally- for years. At least I know that spending more time with the boys will be fun and make you happy.

I am one of those people TimW that doesn't really know swimming. I dabbled in shorter tri's for a few years a decade ago, but swam only as fast as whatever the current was.

What I do know of swimming comes from a high school friend who made the Pan-Am games, Olympic Trials, and got a full scholarship to Southern Cal way back then. I remember he used to swim a 5k a day. So to swim that AND put in that volume of biking AND running is mind numbing.

For some reason, this post reminds me of one of my favorite Steinbeck blurbs...A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find that after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us.

You're enjoying those boys now, that is priceless. My daughter is on her own, my twin boys will be graduating soon; the adventures I have spent with them are memories I would never trade for any great run or race I placed high.

imagine if you'd worked a shift job, literally punching a clock. i used to do that. i still sort of do that, without the literal clock-punching. one day, we were cleaning the office, and i was moving these huge heavy boxes. I opened one out of boredom and they were FILLED with timecards from the clock. you could literally pick up 25 years of a dude's life in timeclock punchcards. it was like a cinderblock. ...how would that dude feel, looking at that cinderblock of timecards? ...i dunno what my point is exactly but...looking at your stats and trying to understand what the reality of them means...is great. Time. Well. Spent.

My 2 cents...because blog commenters are like Yoda-wise and shit. Balance, man. Growing up means you have to divide your time between lots of things. Some for others, some for you. Everybody loves their kids. Most people go to a job and only see their kids a few hours a day. Whatever. Everybody picks their own balance. And you can choose your own. I don't get this "the boys or nothing". They will grow up and be all "My dad is still hanging around us all the time. Creepy!". I could care less if you train anymore. Once less guy in front of me at Leadville. Ha. But I think you can do multiple things. And its not selfish if one of those is a thing for you. You get to be a person too. I fucking hate when we go to kid events and the people are so wrapped up in the kids that they never do a god damn thing themselves. Pick a hobby people. Your kids will actually dig you more. Probably want to help you do it. My kids just joined a running club in Boulder without me being involved at all in the decision or process. Guess I motivated them somehow. That's part of my job as a parent too I hear.